Mega-projects within the energy sector are exciting and innovative, with Building Information Modelling (BIM) fast becoming the foremost part in the industry’s digital transformation. With construction underway on projects such as Hinkley Point C and ITER, both on the cutting-edge of technology and adopting innovative digital techniques, it can be hard to believe that many of us still rely on paper, wet signatures and personal spreadsheets to carry out contract management on projects.
There is no reason why we can’t harness digital techniques to make our lives easier. For example, BIM talks about the ‘digital twin’; a virtual replica of a built asset, holding a richness of information that is impossible to view from the physical asset alone. Why not echo this in other areas of our work? At CEMAR, we’re aiming to create an advancement in the use of technology to produce the contract’s digital twin. Instead of focussing on documents and communications, we focus on events.
Turning a paper process into an equivalent process on screen is a critical step in adopting simple, collaborative technologies, proven to unlock productivity gains in the construction sector. We believe using events as the starting point in accessing contractual information provides that needed intuitive link between the written contract and its real-world management.
BIM allows users to explore and reveal valuable knowledge which is only accessible when presented as a whole, not a series of drawings. Collaborative workflows are supported by an audit trail of printable drawings and structured data files. Similarly, contracts in CEMAR have an intuitive approach; every contract is contained within a shared space where parties can explore the different events, their history and associations. Documents are created and stored as a formal audit trail in the same way that as-built drawings formalise a record of the build environment.
At CEMAR, we’re passionate about unlocking the power of managing contractual events online within a collaborative space, with CEMAR as the contract’s digital twin. To start your journey of digital transformation, get in touch with us to see how CEMAR could make contracts easy for you.
